Data Access Worldwide Forums FAQ

Here you can find answers to questions about how the board works. Use the links or search box below to find your way around.

Why are we moving to Web Forums?

The distinct capabilities of Web Forums will enable us to improve our level of service to our worldwide developer community. If you have used our Newsgroups in the past, you’ll be most likely to notice the following enhancements in the new forums:

  • Access from anywhere via web browser
  • User Profiles
  • User Stats
  • Polling
  • Events Calendar
  • Advanced search capabilities
  • All messages visible all the time (no messages will be hidden because of news client configurations)
  • No message downloading necessary (as needed in news clients)
  • Thread subscription (when someone posts to a thread you subscribed to, you may receive notification via email)
  • No news reader client software required
  • Much friendlier for prospective and new developers
  • The forums’ content is searchable – increases exposure of the products and the company

Why vBulletin?

There are many web forum options, both commercial and open source, that we could have chosen to host the new Data Access Forums, so why did we choose vBulletin?

A large part of the value of the interaction in the Newsgroups comes from the wealth of knowledge contained in the thousands of existing conversations. In addition to providing all of the important features above, we felt that the ability to bring that valuable content, as intact as possible, over into the new forums is very important and vBulletin gave us the best path to do just that. Click to see current users’ testimonials about vBulletin.

Will Data Access Worldwide be using all of the capabilities of vBulletin?

vBulletin can play host to a wide range of “community” features. We’ll start our using the core features. Some capabilities and options may be adjusted over time and some may never be turned on.

Our decisions on how to manage the capabilities of the forum will be based on the best balance of company and product goals and serving the developer community. As in all things, your constructive input is always sought and appreciated.

Will my email address be visible to all members of the forum?

No. What is displayed is your forum ID, not your e-mail address. Your e-mail address will not be displayed anywhere, not even in your profile. Also, if you allow other forum members to send e-mails to you, your e-mail address will not be visible there

Where can I find out how the forum works?

You can learn more about General Forum Usage, User Profile Features and Reading and Posting Messages in the Board FAQ.

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